~~~Henry stopped to think for some seconds. He thought of
answering no since he wasn"t an invitee but just
accompanied Omotara to the event. No one knew about
his attendance, so it was better if he hid it completely. He
cleared his throat. "I…"
The doorbell interrupted. Henry paused to check who it
was on his computer. Frank it was, standing with a laptop
in his hands.
"I thought I told you I was coming to do something
urgent and important." Frank muttered with so much
disgust in his voice. "I"m busy Frank," he said into the
transmitter. "Please come back later, or better still, I"ll
join you when I"m done." He watched Frank leave before
turning back to Dakolo. Dakolo"s eyes showed his
impatience to receive the response to the question he
had asked.
Henry cleared his throat as he was about to continue. "I…"
Henry tried to continue but couldn"t. Somehow he felt a
strange kind of fear surge through his heart. One that
told him that he was about to put himself in deep
trouble. His head began to ache him severely, he felt as if
his head was being used to play football.
"I"m still waiting," Dakolo said impatiently on seeing
Henry"s reluctance to talk.
"I did," Henry finally said, releasing a deep breath
alongside with it.
A bitter frown formed on Dakolo"s face. He felt
disappointed in Henry for attending a party organized by
Jubril, somehow in his heart, he was hoping that Henry
would have proof enough to claim that he wasn"t in the
party and that the person seen in the photo was just a
lookalike or the camera position had only made their
faces resemble. But he was still happy that Henry did not
deny the truth, that would have showed that he was
guilty.
He was also sure that Henry felt remorse for attending
the party, the reluctance to answer the question already
showed Henry"s disappointment in himself and regret for
attending the party.
~+~
"Miss Kimberly," Sylvester called as he proceeded towards
her table. He had given her a s.p.a.ce in an open office with
four other occupants to stay. She was at the end corner
of the office while two other tables were on the same line
with hers. The tables were several centimetres away from
each other, giving each occupier s.p.a.ce and privacy.
All eyes followed Sylvester behind as he marched on to
Kimberly. The other employees who were sub regional
staffs had been surprised when Sylvester introduced her
as a special staff who was to share the same office with
them. As far as they knew, she had no specific job
description or duty, some of them had began to spread
rumours that she was Sylvester"s concubine.
"Kimberly," Sylvester called again as he dropped a paper
on the table, "I want you to confirm if this number was
cloned or not, can you do it?"
Kimberly took the paper from the table and looked into
it. She took in a deep breath and made her acceptance
known with a nod to Sylvester. "Yes sir, I can."
"How long would it take you to get back to me?" Sylvester
asked.
"Before the end of the day." She replied.
"What??" He opened his eyes widely in shock and folded
his arms, staring at her like she was an alien. She stared
back at him in surprise. He calmed himself and lowered
his voice. "Mr Henry asked for three days to work on it."
Kimberly chuckled. "Yes, it"s even possible to use up to a
week or more, especially when you have to contact the
network providers over there. Why I can use less than a
day is because I already have links there, I have links in
Canada. If not, I would have needed to use three to four
days too."
"Okay, I understand."
"Yes… But sir," Kimberly stared into his eyes. "I thought
you said Mr Henry did it already?"
"Yes," Sylvester replied with a sigh. He pulled an empty
chair and sat on it. "He did it when the late Chief Jubril
requested for it but now it"s the police that needs it. A
senior agent just gave me the job to do now"
Kimberly stared at him, still unsatisfied with his answer.
In just two days, she had become so comfortable with
him to the extent of questioning him. She had been his
lecturer for that two days, explaining to him several
things which she did that he didn"t have knowledge of.
"What about his report?" She asked.
"It"s with him," Sylvester answered with another sigh. "It"s
just that we want the investigation to be carried out by
another person."
"Okay, but can I still get the report? I Just need to check
out some processes that would make the job easier. With
that we can even finish the job in less than an hour."
"Mr Henry is busy right now with the Agent in his office,
and he is not even aware that we are carrying out a
reinvestigation," Sylvester explained in a very low voice.
"The Agent wants me to keep it secret from him, so I can"t
go to him."
"It"s okay sir, I"ll do what I can do." She replied and began
to work immediately on the laptop.
"Thanks," Sylvester said with a smile. "We"ll need to
discuss tomorrow and conclude on the terms of your
job, so that you can start fully."
"Huh?" Kimberly opened her mouth in surprise, looking
elated by the news. "Does that mean I"ve gotten a job
already."
"Yes," Sylvester replied happily too. "For the rest of this
month, you"ll work with me and I"ll be responsible for
you while we try to create a s.p.a.ce for you and sort out
your responsibilities."
"Thank you sir, I"m grateful." Kimberly got up to thank
him, covering her mouth with her palms to show her
extreme happiness.
"It"s okay."
~+~
Ken and a junior officer sat in front of the computer, the
junior officer scrolling through some pictures with the
aid of the mouse while Ken paid special attention to the
screen. After going through the pictures of Mrs Dakolo"s
daughter earlier, they selected the two pictures of the
blue suited man who was said to accompany the
Canadian business lady to the party. The new pictures
that were being examined were pictures taken by the
press after the a.s.sa.s.sination had occurred. The press had
come to take pictures and videos of the scene after the
news of the man"s death broke out to them. This
particular set of report was the one gotten from the
desert reporters.
They finished viewing the pictures without seeing
anything significant and moved on to the videos. After
playing two videos, the third and last one was being
played. A desert reporter was in front of the camera
reporting the sad incident. The advanc scene was videoed
was the car park.
"It"s okay," Ken said when the video was about to come to
an end without any useful thing seen. "Make sure you
copy those files completely before returning the flash
drive to them, I"ll need to see everything again." Ken
ordered and got up from his seat, stretching his body.
"Okay sir," the junior officer replied and clicked on the
pause icon.
"Oh!" Ken exclaimed as his face met the screen again.
"What"s that?" He asked pointing at something on the
screen. "Please play."
The blue suited man was incidentally captured by the
camera, it looked as if he was looking for something at
the park.
"Zoom it," Ken ordered in a loud voice. The officer
zoomed the video and clicked pause. Henry"s face was
shown but not too clear there. Ken couldn"t recognize
who it was. "Take a screenshot and send it to Femi, let
him search for that face and get back to me as soon as
possible."
~+~
"How come you attended the birthday party? I could
have never imagined that you"ll ever attend any function
organized by Chief Jubril," Dakolo said in a painful tone.
Dakolo"s stare was piercing through Henry"s heart,
making him feel more guilty and regret going that day
with Omotara. Henry bowed his head, ashamed of
himself, he couldn"t speak also.
"You were even one of the well dressed males in the
event." Dakolo continued. "What did you go there to do?
To have revenge?" Dakolo began to raise his voice in
anger.
Henry took a quick glance at Dakolo"s face at the sound
of the revenge allegation. "No, nothing like that sir, He
tried to find his voice.
"Then explain why you went to the party with Samantha
Osman?"
"Samantha Osman?"
"Yes, that Evelyn was Samantha Osman." Dakolo alleged,
in a bid to make Henry confess if he ever had any
suspicion or was aware if Evelyn was the same as
Samantha.
"Evelyn is not Samantha," Henry argued, sure in his heart
that he was saying the truth.
"She is Samantha," Dakolo insisted with a strong note. He
got up from the seat and picked his device, he
unb.u.t.toned the sleeves of his shirt and rolled them up.
He got beside the wall and stood directly under the air
conditioner. He stared at Henry from where he was.
"Your Evelyn is the same person as Samantha Osman," he
stated again.
Henry shook his head in disagreement. "A man was the
one who killed Jubril Lawal, not a lady. So we shouldn"t
even be talking about Samantha Osman now in relation
to Chief Jubril"s murder. Furthermore, Evelyn could be
anything else; she"s not a killer."
Dakolo gave a chuckle and walked away from the wall
back to his seat. He sat down and positioned himself to
face Henry. "Since everybody is saying that it was a man
who killed Chief Jubril, then that man must be you,
Samantha sent you."
"No, why would I do such? I can"t kill anyone neither
have I come across any Samantha Osman."
"D--n! You did it to take your revenge of course." Dakolo
hit his hand on the table violently, making Henry more
uncomfortable and scared of the situation. "The man and
his son were your enemies, you killed the both of them
on that same day and You didn"t kill them only, you also
killed your kidnappers."
Henry"s mouth was left open in shock. He couldn"t
believe that the Dakolo could accuse him of
a.s.sa.s.sination. Dakolo"s phone rang, he took out his
phone and stood up on seeing the caller.
"Officer Ken…" Dakolo spoke softly, walking slowly to the
window area. "You… "He said in a shocked tone and made
a quick turn to Henry, he tried to conceal his surprise.
"Don"t worry, I"ll do that myself." He said and cut the call.
Henry was still perplexed by all that was happening, his
heart couldn"t accept Dakolo"s allegation that Evelyn was
the same person as Samantha Osman. He couldn"t agree
that she wasn"t Samantha Osman or an a.s.sa.s.sin but he
was quite sure that she was Omotara Danjuma, a
fraudster.
He could remember well how she left him at the table
that day and never returned, he also remembered that
she mysteriously disappeared from the place but his
feelings for her had beclouded his sense of reasoning.
Dakolo gave Henry the shock of his life when after he
ended the call, he took out a key and removed an
handcuff from behind as he proceeded towards the
table.
"I"m sorry Henry, this has gone beyond my personal
investigation. You"re expected in our station right away."